


The Door to Happiness

by busaikko



Category: Youkai Ningen Bem (2011), 妖怪人間ベム
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode s01e05, M/M, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-21
Updated: 2011-11-21
Packaged: 2017-10-26 09:14:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/281313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/busaikko/pseuds/busaikko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natsume's learning what it means to be human.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Door to Happiness

**Author's Note:**

> Title from The 365 Day March ([a live performance YouTube](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkAVtrDZCmE&feature=related)).

> しあわせの　扉はせまい The door to happiness is narrow  
> だからしゃがんで　通るのね We have to duck to get through  
> 百日百歩　千日千歩 100 days, 100 steps, 1000 days 1000 steps  
> ままになる日も　ならぬ日も Some days we do okay, some we don't  
> 人生は　ワン・ツー・パンチ Life's a one-two punch  
> あしたのあしたは　またあした Tomorrow's tomorrow is tomorrow again  
> あなたはいつも　新しい You always have a new  
> 希望の虹を　だいている rainbow of hope  
> (The 365 Day March, Kiyoko Suizenji, 1968)

Natsume finished processing the last of his suspect profiles at half past eleven and stared at the wall clock trying to figure out what to do. He wasn't going home, and that knowledge was heavy and uneasy. He loved his family, the way they ebbed and flowed with the rhythm of normal life, meals and school, PTA meetings and variety programs on TV. But their world wasn't his world anymore. He'd seen too much blood, he thought, and too much hate and cruelty, and too many things he couldn't explain.

He grabbed his overcoat from his locker and called goodbye to the team working telephone scams. They waved, and kept drinking stale coffee.

Outside it was November chill, dead leaves scurrying along the pavement. He was still on desk duty, even though he hadn't been shot that badly, and the injury ached more from forced inaction than from exercise. He took the long walk down to the park, going by the public toilets out of habit, checking the stalls for anyone who shouldn't be there and the walls for fresh graffiti. When he was a kid, no one spray-painted pictures all over stuff. People had more pride back then, he thought, looking at his face in the still-cracked mirror over the leaking sink. There was some kind of sickness eating away at the roots of modern society. Sometimes he felt like people _hated_ each other more these days. Other days he felt like the hatred had always been there, and bubbled to the surface under pressure.

As far as he could tell the park was deserted except for the usual homeless men drinking one-cup inside their blue-sheet tents. Natsume would have to ask his wife if they had any winter clothes or blankets they could give away. Every winter seemed colder than the last.

He found his usual bench, shielded by trees from the lights, and dropped down wearily, stretching his sore leg out, rubbing at the ache, and then shoved his hands in his pockets. When he was a kid, even here he'd been able to see the stars. Now he could just barely pick out Orion's belt, but the city spread out like a sea of light, bloated by nuclear power. Sometimes he wondered why he had children, knowing what the world was like.

He didn't hear Bem approach, but he didn't flinch when the figure in the tell-tale hat sat down at the far end of the bench. He'd been half-expecting a visit, after all.

"You're up late," he said, keeping his voice low, and cracked his neck before turning to look at Bem.

"I wanted to talk to you alone," Bem said. He was very still, like a dragonfly poised at the end of a pole. "You called us human." Natsume opened his mouth, embarrassed, and the corner of Bem's mouth curled up. "I heard you. I have very good hearing."

Natsume took a deep breath, breathed it out. "The year after I got married, we had a case, a person who made up a bomb of toxic gas and set it off in a supermarket. And a few years after that, there was a club owner who married and killed four people and wasn't sorry at all." He spoke while looking down, at the dark grass, at the knees of Bem's trousers, but he made himself raise his eyes to say the next bit. "I've met monsters. You're not one of them."

Bem held out a hand. Even in the poor light, Natsume could see human skin ripple and scale and knot into something alien.

"I've met double-jointed people, too," he added. "And I knew a girl once who could lick the underside of her chin with her tongue."

"We'd be human if we could," Bem said, voice so low it sounded sad, and old, and hopeless.

Natsume became a detective partly because of his irrepressible inquisitiveness, and the less he found Bem terrifying, the more he wanted to know. "Can you... change... on purpose? Does it hurt?"

Bem turned to stare, looking surprised. "Changing doesn't hurt. Hurting causes change." He cocked his head. "You're a strange kind of person."

"Can I touch your –" Natsume started, and then pulled a hand out of his pocket to rub his forehead where he'd seen Bem's horns. He supposed he could tweak Bem's nose again, the way he did Naho and Yui's, the way he used to do with Makoto, but – right now, Bem's nose wasn't strange at all.

"Not here," Bem said, and stood up so quickly Natsume blinked, startled. "Not in the open."

Natsume followed, a bit bewildered, as if he were walking into a dream, and Bem carefully matched his stride to Natsume's careful not-limping pace. At the edge of the park, Bem turned and spoke to the air:

"Bela, don't follow. Keep Belo away?" He added a waving-away gesture, as if he was emphasizing his words or speaking in code. Natsume didn't hear an answer, but Bem huffed out a hard breath, nodded once, and resumed his course through a tangle of back roads.

Natsume understood when Bem pulled him into the curtained-off foyer of a love hotel, one of the automated ones without a clerk visible. Bem fed a five-thousand yen note into the machine and flicked his eyes over the lit pictures of available rooms before picking one. It was the same one Natsume would have chosen, close enough to the ground that the stairs would be faster than the elevator.

Natsume noted that Bem had a good instinct for spotting the surveillance cameras and keeping his face turned away or in shadow as he got his change and headed for the stairwell. He was doing the same thing, even though he doubted anyone would care enough to try to blackmail him. Bem had more to lose. Which if he was honest, was why he had risked following him here.

The room was cheap and gaudy and Natsume wondered idly how many hours the room had been used already today, and whether rooms like this ever got tired of sex and endless changes of dirty sheets and air freshener spray.

"Sh," Bem said, and frowned in concentration a moment before nodding. "No cameras," he added, sounding apologetic. He took his hat off and hung it on the corner of the bathroom door. "I can hear them," and he gave Natsume a quick glance, gesturing vaguely at his ears.

Natsume was staring at the horns on Bem's forehead. He knew it was rude, but he was too tired for social niceties.

"You can touch them here," Bem said, and pushed the hair back from his face, shoving it behind his ears, which looked like normal, human ears.

"I'm still sorry I shot you." Natsume's face went hot. "I assumed -- I was scared. I don't know why you still talked to me after you knew how I treated the other you. You, changed."

"You were protecting your daughter." Bem was matter-of-fact, as if that made obvious sense. "And Bela and Belo and I have to forgive. There's so little of us that's human, we can't risk losing that to grudges. Above all, we want to be human."

Natsume swallowed, and then reached out to touch one of Bem's horns.

"It's warm," he said, and Bem jerked his shoulders in a shrug, as if saying, _what did you expect?_ Natsume traced his fingers around the base of the horn, puzzling out how the bone fit to the skull. "How can you have two different forms like this? Scientifically, I mean, the laws of physics, or even biology."

"Shut up," Bem said, very politely, but he was smiling almost enough to show his teeth – enough to make Natsume remember that sometimes Bem had fangs. "I had to teach myself to read, I never leaned things in school, I don't have any answers. If I did, I'd give them to you."

"That day in the park in the rain," Natsume started, and let his hand slide down so his palm was cupping Bem's cheek, "you were looking at me."

"You gave me chocolate." And there was the white flash of teeth in a smile. Bem tilted his head sideways towards the bed, not very subtle, and put a hand on Natsume's hip.

"Naho and I have an agreement," Natsume got out, speaking fast, because usually he didn't wait until he was two paces away from a bed with a black and red satin headboard to have this conversation. "We can have other lovers, but our marriage is important."

"Ah," Bem said, and leaned in to place a light kiss on Natsume's cheek. "And I imagine you don't tell just anyone that, because of how they'd think of you." He shifted so his hip pressed against Natsume's, as if they were going to start dancing.

"Bela," Natsume asked, and Bem winced and said _My sister. My best friend._

Natsume started unbuttoning Bem's waistcoat.

"You know my skin's wrong," Bem said. He slid Natsume's overcoat off, and then his jacket, and went to fold them carefully on the table next to the pay-for-porn TV. "You saw." He pulled off his jacket and waistcoat, put them next to Natsume's clothes, then pulled his shirt over his head. He wasn't wearing anything underneath, and Natsume's eyes picked out each patch of hard scales.

"Do you change during sex?" Bem half-turned around, hands at the fastenings to his trousers, eyes wide. "You don't like talking about it, I know. Bad work habit, like I said."

Bem might have blushed; the room lighting was bad, and Bem's hair did a good job of shadowing his face. But he disappeared into the bathroom as if trying to avoid scrutiny. Natsume heard water running, and then the tell-tale sound of coins in the dispenser. "Emotion," Bem said, sounding detached, though that might have been the echo off the tiles, "anger or fear, makes me lose control. I wish I didn't."

" _Kireru,_ " Natsume said, and nodded. He stripped away layers of winter clothing until he was down to skin, and piled them on the table, and went to pull off the comforter (probably never washed) and sit on the edge of the bed. "That's human, that's what all the structures and systems of any society are for, to give control when people can't. That's why police work, that's what makes it rewarding no matter what happens, there's a purpose."

Bem came out and looked at him for a long moment. Bem wasn't someone who seemed comfortable naked, which Natsume understood, but his discomfort made his nakedness seem... more naked. He came and sat down close enough to brush his leg against Natume's, and then put his hands on Natsume's shoulders and shoved him back onto the mattress. Natsume thought that was hot, even though Bem's hands were cold.

"You're... pretty strong, aren't you?" Bem gave him a look that implied he was pretty stupid. "You should fuck me. I mean, if you do that." Natsume reached up and slid his fingers into Bem's hair. He'd always thought it would feel like a long-haired cats', but it wasn't exactly that soft. "Is this your real hair color?"

Bem actually burst out in quick laughter at that, and shoved Natsume around and up so his head was by the pillows and Bem was leaning over him, the way he had when he was saving him from being crushed to death.

Natsume had gone over all his memories, and he was fairly sure that the falling pipes broke Bem's back. The expression he'd thought at the time was ferocious was probably pain, and the cracking sound he'd heard could have been bones reforming.

"In the old days Bela had to dye my hair black," Bem said, and let Natsume pull him down by his hair until he was close enough to kiss.

Bem wasn't a practiced kisser, shy at first, startled when Natsume ran his tongue over and then between his lips. He got breathless, and Natsume used his hand at the back of Bem's neck to get a good angle for taking advantage of his open mouth. Bem's hips jerked down, erasing the polite distance he'd been maintaining, and Natsume put his other hand at the small of his back to keep him there, warm and heavy, dick just as hard as his own.

Natsume nearly asked if it had been a long time, but decided he didn't want to know. Bem's mad scientist creator had probably been alive in Meiji, and thinking of Bem as being older than his own dad was freaky. He was just going to keep on thinking of Bem like he had at the first, another kid who'd gone from junior high to _dekichatta_ marriage and was having trouble keeping his head above the metaphorical water.

Except Natsume shouldn't be falling into bed with someone like that, but well, the world was imperfect and Bem was the sort of person he liked, even with the horns and the hair.

He dragged his mouth away from Bem's, even though Bem protested, and shifted so he could kiss along Bem's cheek, suck his earlobe, and bite – gently – down Bem's neck to his shoulder. When he turned his head he could see the patch of inhuman skin, and he touched it carefully, not surprised to find it rough, like callus.

"Don't," Bem said, jerking back, but Natsume kept his hand tight around his shoulder.

"Does it hurt?"

"It's ugly." Bem said the words like they were facts, and Natsume wondered how long it had taken for Bem to learn that different was ugly. From the way Naho complained about the advertising aimed at their daughter, probably that lesson had been absorbed in only a handful of angry words and looks of revulsion – maybe even villagers with torches and pitchforks. The world was not kind.

He doubted the talk Naho gave Yui on loving her body would go over well with someone who had horns.

He settled for saying, "But you're beautiful on the inside," with just enough humor to make the truth less excruciating to say or hear, and added, "If it feels good, go with it, baby."

That made Bem laugh again. "I don't speak German."

" _Baby_ is English," Natsume said, and felt Bem still grinning against his shoulder. He shifted his hips and used his uninjured leg to roll them over, so he was on top, pinning Bem down. "You're fucking with me."

"I," Bem said, completely failing to keep a straight face, "enjoy fucking with you."

"Good," Natsume said. He sat up and looked around for the packet of lube, finding it and the mini-box of condoms shoved up by the pillows with a face towel, still in its plastic bag. He wondered if Bem read enough English to be embarrassed by the product names, but wasn't about to explain. "Should I prep myself?" Bem's breath caught, all the humor disappearing from his face, and Natsume thought, yeah, someone who grew _claws_ when they were nervous was probably not someone he wanted playing with his ass. "Okay," he said, and opened the packet carefully. "Touch yourself," he said, reaching around with wet fingers and rubbing at his hole. Bem's eyes cut from where he'd been watching to his dick. "Your chest," Natsume clarified, working against the tightness of his body, which didn't understand yet how much he wanted this. "Your nipples. Both hands."

Bem was still looking at him like he had a few screws loose, but he reached up and ran his fingers in small circles, tracing his areolae. Natsume saw him suck in a breath and felt Bem's hips jerk as his back arched, his thighs tightened.

"Pinch them," Natsume said, watching. "If you like that, if it's good."

"I don't know." Bem looked frustrated, and Natsume got a very clear, depressing idea of what a hundred-odd years of never being able to take off your shirt or hat during sex was like. A hundred years of never losing control during sex, of never trusting your partners, and some other time he'd be asking Bem where a drifter with no papers who ate weeds got a new five-thousand yen note.

"If you don't like it, then stop," he suggested, trying to sound matter-of-fact and not pitying. "It's incredibly hot from where I am." He hoped that was good enough; he had two fingers stretching himself now and was pretty much at the point where full sentences deserted him.

Bem rolled a nipple between thumb and finger, testing, and then gave it a sharp twist that made Natsume wince. But Bem's dick jerked and his mouth fell open to gasp in air, and he shut his eyes tight, like maybe that was too much for him. Next time, Natsume thought, he'd ask Bem to jerk off for him, but then he was distractedly by Bem's other hand reaching out, finding his stomach, and sliding up to find a nipple. Bem's eyes slitted open like a cat's, and he touched Natsume in the same way he was touching himself, small light circles, the press of a thumb, the sudden mingle of pleasure and pain and then the scrape of a fingernail to lighten the sensation away. With each repetition the feeling seemed to built, like there was electric current between them, and when Natsume's skin was prickling with fire he grabbed the condoms with a shaking hand and said, "Now."

Bem didn't say anything, but he completely destroyed the cardboard box trying to get it open, and ripped the packet so hard he nearly sent the condom flying. He was expert at getting the condom on, which again was probably depressing if Natsume thought too hard about it, so Natsume just held Bem still and lowered himself down, all the way, rocking a little, remembering how good this was.

Bem thrust up to meet him, saying _Sorry_ even as his hands grabbed the sheets. Natsume said, "It's okay," and shifted and damn, now he was feeling the stupid bullet wound, which was not going to make fucking as easy as he wanted.

"Sorry," Bem said again, "I forgot," and then, "Let me," and he slid both hands under Natsume's ass and _lifted him up_.

"I can do that," Natsume protested, and Bem – not exactly _dropped_ him onto his dick, but sure as hell wasn't gentle about letting him down. When he got his breath back, Natume bit out, "Do that again."

It felt weirdly dirty to have Bem do most of the work, like Natsume was some kind of sex toy just along for the ride, but Natsume braced himself on Bem's arms and let go of everything. His job, his family, his sorrow, responsibilities, everything was washed aside by rough pleasure, and he wanted to expand up into that brilliant freedom forever.

"I'm going to come," he told Bem, wrapping his hand around his dick and nearly doubling over from how good it felt. His hair was dripping sweat down onto his face, and when he shook his head it dotted Bem's chest.

"So come," Bem said, sounding impatient and desperate and fond, all mixed up together. Natsume kept his eyes open as he worked his dick hard, watching Bem, past caring about how harsh his breathing sounded or how he looked or anything but the way his whole being seemed to be rushing forward into the light.

When orgasm hit it was a lot like being shot, only in reverse, warmth and pleasure and well-being radiating out through him. He was very dimly aware of being pulled down to lie on the bed and wanted to protest but couldn't do anything but grab hold of Bem's hand. Bem's hand with the hard ridges and sharp nails, which Natsume didn't need to be at his best to figure out meant he needed to do something.

"Okay," he said. His voice came out sounding disused, so he coughed and repeated himself. "Can't take care of yourself like that."

"I'm good," Bem said, and his voice wasn't completely distorted, so Natsume figured he hadn't changed all the way.

"Yeah, you are," Natsume said, and rolled over. Bem's eyes were closed but he turned his face away anyway, chest heaving as he tried to get his breathing under control. "Stop that." Natsume put one hand around Bem's dick and grinned at how that made him shudder. "You don't have anything I haven't seen. You're safe with me." He moved closer, pushing up on his elbow and leaning down to lick at Bem's nipples while he jacked him off fast, the way he did himself when he couldn't bear to wait any longer.

Bem made a noise when he came that was almost a roar, stifling it with his hand as his back arched high off the mattress. Each time Natsume started to let go there was another pulse of come, until finally Bem was entirely spent, limp and breathless. Natsume groped for the handtowel and mopped up what he could, and then turned to look Bem in the face.

Bem had run his stupid fangs through his own hand and he looked like he hadn't even noticed yet. Natsume had had _please_ s and _thank-you_ s drilled into him from a young age, but he didn't know what was polite in this situation, so he just pulled Bem's hand free and watched the punctures heal themselves. Green blood, he thought, but normal come; he wondered how biology explained that.

He reached up and brushed Bem's hair away from his face. His horns were less prominent for some reason, but his fangs were daunting. "Don't you dare bite me," Natsume warned, and kissed Bem before he got an answer. He was sort of hoping that he was safe with Bem as well – after all, how many times over had his life been saved? That had to mean something.

After a moment, Bem kissed him back, so carefully it was nearly sweet. It took longer for Bem to open his eyes, which were still solid black. Natsume kept kissing him and stroking his hair. He didn't realize he was crying until Bem reached up with one human-again finger and wiped away a tear.

"Sometimes," Natsume said, putting his forehead on Bem's shoulder and wishing he could just fall asleep like this. "The world coming back feels too heavy." He poked Bem in the side. "It's got nothing to do with you. You made things better. You have a habit of that. And then there's me." Natsume tried to stop the words from slurring, but it just sounded like he was hiccuping. " _Seigi no mikata_." He meant it as a joke, but it came out sounding like despair, and suddenly he was holding back sobs. "I _wish_ I could save someone, anyone. Truth is, I never have."

"You can cry," Bem said, and put his hand on Natsume's face. "That's what humans do."

"Shut up," Natsume said, and twisted around so his face was pressed against the cool skin of Bem's neck, the way his children had turned to Naho for comfort. He felt tears leaking free from his eyelashes and dripping down, and he wished he wasn't so tired that he just didn't care. "It's like there's just always a sadness at the heart of everything."

"You must be a sentimental drunk," Bem said. He put one hand on Natsume's back and patted, stiff and hesitant, and Natsume thought he'd give Bem humanity if he could. Then Bem got both arms around him and held on like didn't ever plan on letting go.

"I'm sorry," Natsume said. "This is ridiculous."

Bem shrugged and said _maa_ as if he hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary.

"I need a shower." Natsume sighed and sat up, and Bem came with him, still holding on. For a moment Natsume thought how absolutely horrible it would be to fall in love with someone and have to watch them grow old and die. He'd read a story like that in junior high, science fiction or something. He reached up and ruffled Bem's hair, noting that the fangs were gone now, and Bem's eyes were brown again, and the horns seemed perfectly normal to him now. "You could use one yourself. And then we need to go home."

"Yes," Bem said, but he looked like he was trying too hard not to look dismayed.

"I want to do this again," Natsume said. "If you do. When we can."

Bem's heart was absolutely in his eyes when he flicked them up, and Natsume had to kiss him again, even though the feeling was growing, deep down, that this was another life he couldn't save.

Showered and dressed, they left separately, and Natsume wasn't sure that Bem would even wait for him until he turned the corner with the shuttered bookshop and saw Bem leaning against the wall, hat pulled down over his forehead and his eyes lowered by habit,

"We meet again," Natsume said, and slung his arm over Bem's shoulders.

After a few awkward steps, Bem snorted and put his arm around Natsume's back. "I should walk you home. You get in trouble. And you're hurt."

"Yeah, yeah." Natsume leaned; Bem held him up. Under his breath, Natsume started to hum, and then to sing: " _Walk with your head up, to keep the tears from falling..._ "

Bem made a shushing motion with his free hand, but joined in. " _And you recall that spring day_ – "

"Summer day."

Bem shook him. "Spring day."

"You are so wrong."

"If you were even _alive_ when that song was popular I will eat my hat." Natsume was too busy trying not to laugh to keep up the argument. "Ha."

"You're adorable when you think you're right," Natsume got out, and then did laugh, so loudly that Bem had to clap a hand over his mouth and half-smother him to get him to be quiet.

Finishing the song took the whole walk back home, arguing over every other line and whether it was clearly the most famous Japanese song of all time – Bem's position – or surpassed by _Kawa no Nagare no You Ni_.

"Life was easier back then," Bem said, sounding a bit wistful, or possibly dazed from lack of sleep, as they stopped outside the entrance to Natsume's building.

"Old geezer," Natsume said, and stepped close to give Bem a quick kiss. He didn't care if the neighbors told his wife, because he was going to tell her first. "Tell Bela... thank you. Or something. She's really going to hate me now, isn't she?"

Bem ducked his head and smiled, and raised his hand. "I'll see you," he said, and turned and walked away. Natsume watched him moving quickly through the shadows until he was out of sight, and then started up the stairs, back to his ordinary life, where the genkan light was lit for him, and his slippers were set out, and his futon was turned back, warm and waiting.


End file.
